


You Can Tell Me Why (But I Already Know)

by maely1234



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, One-Sided Attraction, Sort of a character study, more a chance for me to get my extra angsty au idea out there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 13:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18032234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maely1234/pseuds/maely1234
Summary: Honestly, Astrid pities the unknowing souls who will inevitably fall in love with Hiccup.





	You Can Tell Me Why (But I Already Know)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so im gonna be honest here. im not really a fan of astrid and hiccup as a couple, like i dont hate it i just love them so much better as friends. but i can never do things without angst so here we are :D i love the idea of hiccup stepping down at chief bc as much as he wants to be able to accept that position and honor his fathers legacy we all know he feels most at home with toothless exploring the world. also chieftess astrid is a hill i will die on thank you very much

Honestly, Astrid pities the unknowing souls who will inevitably fall in love with Hiccup. He may not have been chief for any great length of time- less than a year really, and even then Astrid had picked up the slack around the 7th month mark- but he still has that noble appeal that makes people want to fall into his good graces. He has been Berk’s saviour more times than Astrid cares to count, so the fond glances he gets from hopeful youths are no surprise to Astrid. (Hiccup never notices them, Astrid can’t tell if it’s because he can’t recognize that type of look or because he’s never looking at his people, always somewhere else.)

 

Astrid wishes she had the strength to take the owners of those looks aside and shake them- tell them to give up on whatever dreams they have of what might be because those dreams are futile and destined to end in a heartbreak entirely of your own making. She doesn’t though. To do so would be baring her deepest secret, pulling her heart out while it was still beating just so she could so them how it still bleeds a little every time he looks at her with joy in his eyes. To do so would be to admit to her weakness, her mistake, her utter  _ idiocy _ in thinking that the boy with the heart and soul of a dragon would want to be tied down by human notions of love. Ah- but he’s a man now, nothing like the clumsy, underfooted nuisance she had seen him as for so long. Maybe he wasn’t any of those things; who is she kidding, he was but that’s only because he was never meant to be a viking. 

 

His true calling was found with obsidian scales that reflect all the hues of the world and have wings large enough and strong enough to take him to the ends of the earth and was the first to love him in a way that Berk never could. She can see them now, walking side by side down by the shore. Their footsteps are in perfect tandem, a hand placed on a scaled shoulder for extra support as the peg leg sinks into the sand. 

 

If she was younger and more foolish, she might have taken the chance from her cliffside view to imagine them walking side by side, whispering secrets and holding hands to show their unwavering support. But she isn’t either of those things, so instead she smiles softly at the familiar sight, a huff tinged with resignation escaping her. 

 

She doesn’t really have a right to be more than resigned- even though her heart disagrees with that conclusion in her head she knows it is the best one. He was nothing to her for so many years; that was, until he had shown her what it was like to well and truly fly- only after a prolonged sort of torture but according to him that was Toothless’ doing. Hiccup did what no viking ever dared, let alone could; he befriended dragons. 

 

There was where it had all went wrong. Astrid started to respect him-  _ admire _ him even. 

 

Respect is something Astrid still doesn’t give away easily, admiration even less so. Respect is earned. She had fought for the respect given to her as a teen viscously, knowing that one misstep, one badly thrown axe would not spare her a fiery death, nor would it spare the lives of her neighbors. So she had to be better. She had to win, to conquer, to kill for the sake of her tribe and she had to be the best at it. 

 

But to look at a dragon- to look at the thing you have been taught to hate and kill and see not a monster but the humanity behind its slitted eyes- takes a different kind of strength. (Of course, Astrid didn’t think this at first. At first it was just cowardice, another reason why Hiccup could never be a real viking because how dare he disrespect their ancestors’ lives like that.)

 

Hate is easy, so very, very easy for her. Peace, love, even, is something that is far from instinct with her. To Hiccup, love is in every breath he takes. He loves the world around him, he loves dragons, he even loves people. (But how much? Astrid always asks herself, knowing the truth is one she still doesn’t want to face anew. Now who’s the coward?) That was what Astrid had seen in him. Pieces of humanity and a strength she had trained out of herself. He had her respect then, although it was given begrudgingly at the beginning. 

 

Now she’s seen the depths of Hell with him, and her respect has long since transformed, melded together with her knowledge and understanding of Hiccup into something greater than even admiration. 

 

She can see glimpses of that feeling in the adoring eyes that follow Hiccup. It can’t match hers, but that is because they only know Hiccup as an idol, a distant figure they believe protects Berk and its people over all else. (The very idea makes Astrid want to laugh.) She can’t find it in herself to blame them. They’ve never had their life tottering on the edge of a dragon’s wing, only too look into emerald eyes and realize that you will always come second no matter what you do. 

 

Reality is as cold as the snow that plagues them for 9 months of the year, and just as deadly. As the first chieftess who isn’t a widow, Astrid doesn’t have time to cry over trivial things like love. There are housing plans to lay, news of dragon trappers brought back by Hiccup’s adventures to deal with, disgruntled berkians to hear out before she smacks them and tells them to get over it, and the endless list of problems surrounding Berk. Besides, she’s already shed enough tears at Hiccup’s expense. 

 

She’ll give those girls piteous glances instead, waiting until they move on or the inevitable truth hits them. In the end, some lessons are best learned on their own, and it makes no difference to her all the same. 

 

She’s already moving on. There’s so much more to life than romance anyways- like Stormfly and the close friendship her and Valka have forged and punching Snotlout whenever he says something degrading. One day, she’ll look at him and feel nothing but the solid weight of friendship and slight annoyance. 

 

That’s perfectly fine with her. 

  
  



End file.
